This was ridiculous. Branwen could barely stand another second. At first she had been patient, but this was just stupid. "I TOLD YOU! TAKE ME HOME!" Maria yelled.

"Look, it won't be that bad. I'm telling you, no one's going to make fun of you,"Branwen tried again. She and her sister were standing on platform nine and three quarters, Maria near tears and Branwen near insanity. Once again, their parents had been to busy too see them off. Since it was Maria's first year and all, Branwen felt obligated to stay and see her onto the train, and get her some new friends. But it wasn't Maria's unreasonable fear that made Branwen angry, it was the fact that Emma, her twin, had bolted off with James Potter the second they had arrived, to wreak havoc. Branwen had long since given up on even seeing her older sister Francesca lately. So that left Branwen all alone to handle Maria.

" I hate Emma. It's her fault anyway! If she and those stupid Marauders didn't get bored so easily, I might look halfway normal!" Maria ranted. Over the course of the summer, the Marauders had concocted a 'very lovely' potion, out of sheer boredom. Since Maria had been the only one home, she had been the logical choice for a tester. The result was Maria's hair turning the brightest shade of platinum blonde ever. Also, something in the potion prevented all hair dye from having an effect on it. From the crowd, however, a savior came in the form a young lady with wavy red hair and emerald eyes.

"Lily ! Thank god!" Branwen exclaimed.

"Hello Branwen, hello Maria. How are you two on this lovely morning?" Lily greeted.

"I hate Emma, I hate James, I hate Sirius, I hate Remus, and I hate Peter! I hate my parents for making me go to this school, which I hate, and I hate trains!" Maria screamed. Lily looked momentarily shocked, but she was able to recover. " So does this mean your not having a good morning?" she guessed.

"Maria thinks people will make fun of her for hair." Branwen explained. Maria turned and glared at her older sister.

"You know what you can do, Branwen? You can take your wand and sh-," she stopped, her eyes freezing on something behind Branwen. She then squealed happily, "Hayden! I thought you were a muggle!" Maria ran past Branwen and Lily, and up to another young girl who looked positively shocked. "Maria! I thought I was a muggle too!" the girl responded. With that, the two skipped toward the train to talk some more.

"What just happened?" Lily said, befuddled by the random-ness of the situation.

"You know, I just stopped asking after a while. I just assume she's bi-polar," Branwen explained. Lily nodded her head, still looking after the two girls.

"Lets get on the train before all the seats are taken," she said, stepping in the direction of the train.

" If you mean, lets board the train before James shows up to try and win you over, then I'm tempted to say, lets wait a bit," Branwen grabbed Lily by the arm before she could walk away.

Lily turned to her with a pleading look, "Please Wen, can't we just avoid him at least until we're at the castle?" Branwen smiled smugly in response. Right on time one arm slid around Branwen's shoulder, as one arm slid around Lily's waist. "James." Lily groaned.

"That would be my name love," the boy with inky black hair, messed up to perfection, and mischievous hazel eyes replied. Branwen looked to the arm on her shoulder, and followed it up to the one of the most well known faces in all of Hogwarts.

"Sirius! How do you do?" she asked politely.

" I do very well, Ms. Hayle, how was your summer?" he asked, his stormy grey eyes twinkling.

"I do believe you should know, since you spent most of your summer at my house," she countered.

"Ah yes, good times indeed," he smiled. James rolled his eyes. Lily was trying vainly to get out of James' arms, but Branwen suspected being the Quidditch Captain, James's muscles were very similar to solid iron.

"Do I even want to know what's going on over here?" a voice said from behind them.

"Aww, were only a couple of lonely boys looking for some love, Emmy," Sirius pouted.

"Sirius Black, you haven' been without 'love' since the day you first stepped foot on Hogwarts ground," Branwen's beautiful twin Emma said, while emerging form the crowd. Her raven black hair had acquired a new blue-ish glow over the summer, but it was better than last summer when she had been very into green, shall we say.

"Oh! Stand next to each other!"Sirius giggled as he shoved Branwen into Emma. The girls rolled their eyes at him. Why was it such a shock that they were fraternal twins? Sure, they were very, very different looking, with Branwen's dirty blonde hair and dark green eyes being such a harsh opposite to Emma's jet black hair and electrifying blue eyes, but it wasn't THAT interesting. For a minute they all just stared at the two, even Lily stopped wiggling for a moment.

"You know it's not even your hair color, you two are just so pale," James stated.

"I am not pale!" Emma protested.

"Not compared to Branwen,"Sirius said. Emma, having been outside most of the summer, did now have ,at least, a brown-ish glow to her, but Branwen had remained quite white. The girls turned to look at each other. They had the same heart shaped face, same long lashes framing their eyes, and their noses were quite similar too. However, when Branwen looked at Emma she saw the 'beautiful' twin, and when Emma looked at Branwen she saw the 'different' twin. The pair had grown up knowing only their differences, which they had a lot of. "This is when you two need to start snogging!" Sirius said happily.

"Ewwww!"

"Pervert."

"Git."

"Moron!" Emma said lastly ,hitting him on the shoulder.

"A boy can dream can't he?" He said hopefully. James chuckled and shook his head like Sirius was a child who had just been dragged off by his mum for using a naughty word. The girls, on the other hand, looked thoroughly disgusted.

"Did Maria do okay? Does she thank me yet for her lovely hair?," Emma questioned turning to Branwen.

"She hates you." Branwen replied cheerily.

"Good, because the day Maria actually likes Emma, will be the day Sirius becomes a prefect," James spoke up.

" Did I really just hear the words prefect and Sirius in the same sentence?" A boy with sandy blonde hair that hung just barley in his deep blue eyes now joined the small circle they had made. "Didn't see that coming did you Moony?" Emma said.

"No I can't really say I did,"Remus replied. The train gave a shrill whistle in warning somewhere behind them.

"Well ladies, would you be so kind as to join us in our lovely compartment?" James said grandly. "Sorry Potter, we have, um..., Branwen! Didn't we promise, um, Cilla, yeah Cilla, that we'd sit with her?" Lily said, having finally managed to weasel out of James's grip.

" Um, yeah I think we did. We'll see you lot later!" Branwen said while she and Lily walked up to the train. As fun as it was to watch James lust after Lily, there was something about Remus Lupin that left Branwen feeling a little disturbed.

After fighting their way through to the front of the train, the girls found themselves in front of the compartment at the head of the train. Lily straightened her shirt and fixed her hair while Branwen rolled her eyes.

"Hello Severus," she said once she had gotten the door open. The boy sat in the corner, his face shoved in a rather large potion book.

"Hello Branwen, how was your summer?" he asked not looking up.

"Oh it was go-,"she started.

"Lily! How are you?" Severus cut her off, hoping up from his chair.

" Hi, Severus, sorry we're late. James found us before we could get on," she replied. The two immediately sat down and started into a deep discussion of all the books they had read over the summer.

"Oh yes Sev, my summer was great! Did you know I'm now dating Sirius Black, you know your long time enemy? Yes, he's a right good kisser that one." Branwen replied sarcastically to herself. The pair didn't even throw a glance her way. Branwen couldn't see how Lily could judge James so quickly, and yet insist on not judging Severus. Not that Branwen didn't like Severus, she did, but if it hadn't been for Lily, she wouldn't have become friends with him. As for James, she use to see him as the arrogant, talented, handsome, trouble maker he was made out to be. But over the years she saw a much deeper person, a nice, funny person, the person that he was when it was only his friends around. But she wasn't James's friend, she reminded herself. No, it was Emma who was best friends with the infamous Marauders. Branwen sighed as she lay down on the seats and took a nap, because once those two started talking about a book, there was no hope of getting either's attention.

When the train finally stopped, Branwen and Lily were the first ones off. For safety reasons they had to never be seen getting on or off the train with Severus. Just picturing Emma's face if she found out Branwen was friends with him sent chills down Branwen's spine. It was no surprise to them when they sat down at the Gryffindor table, that the four Marauders and Emma were missing. Branwen sighed warily, just knowing they were up to something. And on the first night! She scanned the room for new faces, her eyes landed on a young woman sitting at the professors' table, mid twenties she guessed, with pale blonde hair and peculiar gold eyes. She had a thin black scarf wrapped around her head, which glittered like diamonds in the candle light, and many small thin bracelets that flashed on her wrist. As Branwen stared the lady turned and looked her in the eye, raising one thin blonde eyebrow. Branwen quickly looked away. There was something familiar about the woman, but as her vision started to flicker, a voice broke in,

"Wizarding world to Branwen Glyn Hayle! Are you there?" Emma tapped Branwen's head with her hand.

"What the bloody hell! When did you lot get over here?" she said as looked around to find James across from her, Sirius on her other side , Remus next to James and Peter next to him. "Were sneaky like that," she stated. And that's when Branwen noticed the giant smirks that plastered on their faces.

"What did you guys do?" she asked suspiciously.

"Well love, I guess you'll just have to wait and see, now won't you?" James chuckled as he shared a look with Emma. Branwen had learned that when you wanted to know what they had done, before they had done it, they would never tell you. So she sighed, again, wondering just what havoc their latest prank would cause.